Who’d have guessed you could travel halfway across the world to watch a ­football game and the first words you’d hear would be so familiar.

“Those FIFA b******s are to blame.”

Okay, who wouldn’t have guessed it?

I had asked why a third of ­Brazilians were deeply opposed to hosting next year’s World Cup , and the answer, from an articulate Sport Recife fan, was a standard lament.

“They’ve made us spend so much on the stadiums and the rest of the infrastructure that we have no money left for the things Brazilian people really need: Decent health, education and transport.”

It echoed what Romario, the legendary Brazil striker-turned-MP, has said of the shindig:

“FIFA comes here, sets up a state within our state and will leave with two, maybe three billion dollars in profits. And then what will happen to the white elephants they built? It’s the biggest robbery in the history of Brazil.”

Ronnie Biggs, eat your heart out.

The working-class masses, like the 30,000 I sat amongst in Recife, believe the World Cup is not for them, but rich outsiders.

Most expect, when it arrives, to fully embrace it, ­especially if Brazil go all the way.

But right now many feel their only connection to the world’s greatest football show is that they will end up footing the £8billion bill as their corrupt and cowardly politicians bend over ­backwards to satisfy FIFA’s every whim.

It’s why 250,000 protesters took to the streets last June, why Sepp Blatter was booed at the opening of the Confederations Cup, why unions put the deaths of two construction workers in Sao Paulo’s stadium down to FIFA’s unrealistic deadlines and why the slogan for Brazil 2014 “All in one rhythm” is referred to locally as “All in one pocket”.

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FIFA argue their exacting demands will ensure a quality legacy, but even the Brazilian government admits that after the tournament at least four of the 12 stadiums will either be abandoned or suffer crippling losses.

Last weekend, Recife was gripped by football fever, but it had little to do with the World Cup.

On Sunday, the city was awash with the tricolours of Santa Cruz, who won ­promotion from Serie C.

Despite a £150m arena being built on the outskirts to host four World Cup games, no banners or posters proclaimed the global event.

Looking around Sport’s old stadium on matchday it was easy to see the disconnect between grass-roots football and the corporate event that FIFA is selling.

There was colour, singing, drumming and bouncing on all sides of the heavily-policed ground - I hadn’t felt such passionate intensity at an English league game since the 1980s.

Fans were mostly young and working-class, with adults paying £8.50 and students £4 to get in.

They chanted throughout, and when a song went up about being back in the first division, and the old stadium rocked, a woman showed me the mass of bumps on her arm and asked me the English word for it.

It had been so long since I’d seen goose-bumps, I’d almost forgotten.

Watching Brazilians engrossed in their religion gives hope that when the world arrives to pay homage at ­football’s spiritual home, they won’t disappoint.

There will be more violent protests, but when you’ve recently had one of the fastest-growing economies yet your education system rates worse than Mongolia’s, who can blame people for rioting over savage cuts caused by football?

Brazilians are passionate animals who love their football, their partying and their freedom of expression. Which is a heady cocktail.

Hopefully a Molotov cocktail, thrown at the Suits who have stolen the game, which shocks them into realising what football is still all about.

In which case, football really would be coming home.

Get over there if you can.

Luis cannon could blow Brazil away

(Photo: Getty)

There is one fear among Brazilian fans which runs so deep few want to contemplate it yet alone speak of it.

That next year will see a repeat of 1950, when Brazil last hosted the World Cup and were beaten by Uruguay in a final the nation expected to win.

That defeat, before 200,000 in the Maracana, left psychological damage on the nation so deep it went down in history as the Maracanazo (“the Maracana Blow”).

When I asked a middle-aged man how the nation would react if it happened again, he shook his head and asked for one reason to believe it would.

So I gave him one: Luis Suarez, who seems to improve by the week, and who could outshine Messi and Ronaldo next summer if Uruguay go the distance.

Let’s face it, Uruguay will not have had anyone since 1950 more capable of delivering a Maracana Blow with every part of his anatomy (including his teeth) than Suarez.

When winning is for losers

(Photo: Stuart Franklin - FIFA)

Brazilian kids don’t just play on the beaches.

You’ll see them as you drive through towns and cities playing on pitches so worn the grass has turned to sand. You see them knocking it about with freedom and laughter, with no dads or coaches in sight screaming at them.

Which was how I remember it growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, when Britain produced all those glorious mavericks.

Anyone who watches kids football today knows how much that’s changed.

Anyone who doesn’t should read the story of 42-year-old Justin Byrne, who’s just been sacked as coach of Chalfont St Peter’s Under-10s , after sending a memo to parents saying football under him is not about having fun because he’s “only interested in winning”.

It sums up the fear in kids’ eyes of a Sunday morning when, instead of working out the best moment to nutmeg an opponent, they’re working out if the screams from the touchline, telling them to: “play it in the hole... dig deep... put your foot through it,” are aimed at them.

And we wonder why Brazilians caress the ball as though it’s their lover and most Brits treat it like a stalker.

The game's afoot

In the run-up to the 2002 World Cup, Japanese paranoia about English hooligans was so rampant the British Embassy issued leaflets to calm fears.

It didn’t really work.

One of the first things I read when I landed in Tokyo was councillor Takayoshi Konno warning the people of Miyagi of the barbarism that lay in store.

“We must also face the possibility of unwanted babies conceived by men who force sex on our women,” he added.

Brazil has no such worries. In fact, they are welcoming the last bit.

In Belo Horizonte, the Association of Prostitutes offers free English classes to members to learn our sexual terminology and have an agreement with a bank to use credit card machines adopting the slogan: ‘Enjoy now, pay later.’

Which fills the head with wonderful images: Sex workers giving the wrong answer to the question “Which way do I stick my chip in, love?”

Worse-for-wear fans trying to remember their PIN number, with their kecks around their ankles, and the wives of those fans opening the Visa bill in August.